LET’S DO LUNCH ( OR DINNER)
SPECIALOCCASION MENUS CAN BE USED FOR AFTERNOON OR EVENING
Company’s coming! Your home is twinkling in Christmas bling, but what’s on the menu? If you’re having friends over for a Christmas luncheon, Bruce Clark and Louella Landreth have an alternative to the standard chicken salad or quiche: stuffed chicken breast. Juicy and flavorful, the beauty of this dish is that it can be “personalized” to suit your taste just by changing stuffing contents.
The pair has prepared lunches for four groups this holiday season, serving stuffed chicken breast along with broccoli casserole, scalloped potatoes, Landreth’s homemade rolls, gelatin salad and dessert.
It’s a menu that works, they say, for either lunch or dinner, and can be altered to suit the time of day just by changing the side dishes or dessert for lighter recipes.
Best of all, it won’t break the grocery budget. The dishes are all staples of Southern cooks, made with basic ingredients, most of which are kept on hand.
Landreth has been the inhouse cook at First Cumberland Presbyterian for 15 years, while Clark has been the church’s organist for 37 years.
“I started cooking at age 6,” says Landreth. “My half-sister and father taught me. I grew up in Meigs County and lived on a farm. Everybody else was in the fields, so I cooked.”
Clark has a background in floral design and baking, having worked part-time for Sherrill’s Catering in Rossville for 30 years. He says his mother taught him to cook at about age 10 and he helped cook Wednesday night dinners at the former Central Baptist Church in Woodmore, where he was church organist before being hired by Cumberland.
Together, they make a powerhouse team — he handles table set-up; she cooks, assisted by him. The two only cater parties for the church’s groups or outside groups holding their events at First Cumberland.
“Their food is always delicious,” says Charlynne Fry, a guest at the Chattanooga Music Club’s Christmas luncheon, which the pair catered. “The stuffed chicken breast is really tasty. It’s so tender you can cut it with a fork.”
For this stuffed chicken breast recipe, she used Pepperidge Farm stuffing (either cornbread of herb-seasoned). However, Clark says other stuffing alternatives might be a broccoli mixture, ham and cheese combo, spinach or crumbled feta cheese. A suggested stuffing recipe from Food Network is included.